Electric Guitar: Open String Licks

Open string notes can be fun to incorporate into your solos; plus they are extremely effective at adding speed to a guitar lick with a reduced amount of effort. They can also be seen as adding another "dimension" to your improvisations as well. Below I will list one regular lick and then one tapping lick that each use open strings to demonstrate how open notes can enhance a lick considerably. Concerning finger tapping licks, open strings work well since more notes can be added, or "crammed in" (stuffing notes into the bar as fast as possible without worrying about exact phrasing or timing) to make the phrase sound even faster. But before we start tapping our way into oblivion, we need to get a handle on a couple of regular licks that use open string notes first. Try this one:

High E string: |-3p0-0-0-5p0-0-0-3p0-0-0-2p0-0-0-| Continue on high E: |-3-5-3-0--| B string: |-3-5-3-0--| G string: |-2-4-2-0--| D string: |-2-5-2-0--|

The first bar is a fast open string lick that can be moved up and down the neck using notes from the E minor scale (the pull-offs here are "crammed-in" for a rhythmic effect that adds to the illusion of more speed), and the second part is just an extension of the E minor pentatonic scale going down the strings (all notes are either hammered-on and pulled-off in this bar, except for the first note on each string). The lick is set up so we can go back to the first part immediately after the second bar, with no pause in between. We could even switch to a different string such as the B, after doing the descending second half of the lick; but if you do, it may be more difficult to properly dampen other strings when you perform the tremolo picking.

Now for the fun part. Let's execute some finger-tapping with our nimble digits. Finger tapping with open strings can triple and sometimes even quadruple the effect of speed. But let's start off with something relatively easy. We don't want to push things too far right off the bat.

G string: |-12(t)-7-5-0-5-7-12(t)-7-5-0--| Continue on G string: |-4-5-12(t)-5-4-0-4-5-12(t)-5-4-0--|

All notes above are finger-tapped (notice the small t's next to the 12's), hammered-on, or pulled-off to; and pay strict attention to keeping the string noise down with this one. You always want to dampen the other strings to lower extraneous string noise on a distorted guitar. You do this by lightly touching them with various free parts of your hands that are not involved with executing the lick. (It comes naturally after playing a distorted electric guitar long enough.) Notice the finger-tapping lick above is sort of a pedal point lick, and many other note variations from various scales (even exotic ones) could be used to produce different tonal effects.

There is actually another lick I know that uses all three fingers of the fretting hand, along with the open high E string and finger-tapping on the 12th fret, to produce very swift tones. It is one of the coolest and most advanced tapping licks that I know - a geniune tour de force tapping phrase - but I am not going to list it in this article because 1) the rhythms and fingerings are very difficult to convey through guitar tablature alone, and 2) I've already used the lick in my guitar book, How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell - so if you really want to see the lick, please consult that book.

Hopefully these open string licks will get you started inventing some of your own. And remember, the tonal and scalar possibilities with open string phrases are endless.

Reference:

"Incorporating Open Strings," How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, Jason Earls, Pleroma Publications, 2007.